Seaside, founded by Nicola Park in 2001, will welcome customers to its latest store in the Northumberland market town of Haltwhistle on Tuesday (25 April). The company also has shops in Wingate, Easington, Sacriston and Hartlepool, which was its most recent branch to open in 2019. 

Park told TTG she immediately knew Haltwhistle would be a perfect place to expand to, describing how there was “a real buzz” for travel among consumers in the area.

“I have been going to a lodge near Haltwhistle for years and years, but noticed there were no travel agents there,” she said. “There is a villagey feel to the street – it seems different to other places.”

Park said she had a feeling about the place straight away and found the local community to be very welcoming, and that “everyone says hello to you when they walk past".

She described the moment of deciding to open the new branch – the company’s first since the pandemic – as taking a “who dares wins attitude”.

Five new members of staff have been hired to run the branch, all of whom are from the local area and have been taken from non-travel backgrounds.

Park said Seaside’s other branches had been performing “massively well” this year. “It feels like we are back to the old times before the horrible stuff with the pandemic,” she said. “Now, we are having one of the busiest years ever.”

Park and her new team plan to celebrate the opening of the Haltwhistle branch with a party next week. “Although our opening day is on a Tuesday, we will be partying like it is a Friday,” she said.

As TTG readers will recall, a new store opening is not the only exciting news on the horizon for Park, after she was proposed to by her partner Barry on stage at the Jet2holidays conference last November. 

Giving an update on the whirlwind proposal and upcoming nuptials, Park said: “We need to think about opening the shop first, then I’ll get onto the wedding!”